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West Seattle Crime Watch: Police search for robber

Police have been searching in the California/Charlestown area after a reported armed robbery at an address that checks to the 7-11. According to scanner traffic, this is reported to have happened around 2:30 am. A K-9 unit was called to help search. The robber, last seen westbound on Charlestown, is reported to have had a dark bandana over his face, 5’8″, black jacket, blue jeans, sawed-off shotgun that may have been fired during the holdup. No injury reported.

@Skeptic: Seriously – that’s your contribution for the day? Although I personally think the bigger issue is the robbery itself, Workdowntown has a point. A sawed-off shotgun points to serious thuggery and/or stupidity. Federal Firearms violation unless you have the proper permit. Which is highly doubtful. Especially if under-age, which is a whole other issue.

I agree with you (and worksdowntown) but we need a “let’s solve this for our neighborhood” attitude more than the tired old “what?! I’m leaving now.” I expect that it’s an empty remark most of the time, and can’t feel too bad about the tidy profit one would make selling a decades-old home.

@Matt: I’m completely on board with let’s work together to solve this problem instead of moving, but we’ve swung so far away from personal accountability that I’m afraid my ideas would be deemed too “harsh”. Yes I know there’s no easy, single solution and a lot of hard work will be required. A change in city leadership would be a good start. Not just the faces on the business-as-usual talking heads. Real *leadership* and the guts to make decisions that aren’t popular with vocal minorities, but benefit the vast majority of the city’s citizens. I personally have no plan to move and I’ve been here a very long time, too. Some things are better than they used to be. Some aren’t. The things that aren’t are much worse. Rant mode off.

Peter — You are correct. What’s happening to Seattle starts at the top leadership that was voted in by King County voters. Until the voters wakeup and want a different type of city (safe, clean, roadways, infrastructure) nothing will change and may even get worse. As a Seattlite, I can say that Seattle has grown into a liberal, pc mess over the years which can only be rectified by voting in strong leadership to counter some of the horrible decisions that have been made and solve the ongoing problems that are never sovled.

Matt says, ” I expect that it’s an empty remark most of the time, and can’t feel too bad about the tidy profit one would make selling a decades-old home.” I see nothing empty about remark and what does making profit have to do with anything ? If one sold their home for what they paid originally how would one buy their next place or use profit to help pay for cost of retirement ? We and many of our friends that have lived in WS over 50yrs are talking seriously and looking at options to get out of WS also. The city is making it very hard on home owners with the increased taxes, crime and have done little towards transportation issues unless one works downtown. If anyone thinks cost of living in Seattle are going to get more affordable wake up. If Mayor Murray gets his way with HALA , ADU’s and DUDA’s giving builders more tax breaks where will money be made up ? by increasing taxes for everyone else. Rents and home ownership cost will rise to pay missing tax revenue. I bought my houses as not only a place to live, but also an investment so I can take care of MY bills as I age, not pushing debts created by me onto others. Many of todays generation crack me up with their thinking….

@wetone I’ll take any criticism of my strange comments, but let’s leave our generations out of it since neither of us was voted official spokesperson.There are many “I’ve got to get out” or “I guess I’m moving” comments in response to neighborhood change, and I can only hope that people with that attitude follow through since apathy isn’t going to help anything. I don’t know, but I expect that these are knee-jerk comments from people who are disheartened and not actually calling their realtors immediately after reading a blog post. I assume that anyone who’s been here for a while will inherently sell his/her home at a considerable profit, improving prospects for moving or retirement. I’m wrong a lot so feel free to correct me, I’m just going off what I read/hear about Seattle property values and see happening on my street. Sure the cost of living will only increase, and it’s obvious that the city is suffering from growing pains. There are positives and negatives to all the growth, and I have no argument with your comments on taxes, crime, and transportation needing urgent attention.I can imagine how unnerving and overwhelming it might be to watch my quiet, treasured neighborhood change suddenly into something I barely recognize. Even worse, to be financially strained and feel as though I can’t even be part of it anymore. Since the change is inevitable and the problems are real, I think we’re all going to be better off engaging, arguing, and organizing to try and grow our neighborhood together instead of dealing with whatever developers or politicians are serving up. We both have investments and a neighborhood we care about, and I’d far rather engage with someone like you who’s going to challenge my perspective than someone whose response to change is surprise and abandonment.

There is a lot of loose talk from commenters on this blog who sound like retired right-wing talk radio hosts. I wonder whether the guy who suspects his approach would be “too harsh” for the taste of “vocal minorities” (*cough* BLM) realizes how he sounds? What sort of tactics would he recommend, I wonder…? If I speculate, I’ll be striding on the verge of breaking Godwin’s law…This isn’t rocket-science people. West Seattle is under-policed and under-employed in its nether-regions. We need a much stronger police presence, not just reactive to emergencies after the fact, but pro-actively patrolling these areas with frequent robberies and violence, like Delridge and High Point and even the Admiral after dark. We need bike cops pedaling around on the street (or sidewalk), using those magical human-powered displays of conspicuous authority with the same zeal and efficiency as they did against the May Day protesters in ’13.

A good corollary to that would be to reiterate the need for reasonable gun control legislation that makes background checks universal, holds gun sellers accountable for backroom sales and rigorously enforces bans on illegal or illegally-modified (in the case of the sawed-off shotgun) weapons. Law enforcement has been asking for tougher gun laws for decades and it’s high time we listened.

In addition, we need to fund mental health care and jobs programs for people living in places like South Park and White Center, where opportunities for gainful employment are virtually non-existent for under-educated minorities who grow up in neighborhoods with a strong gang presence. I am not excusing the behavior of criminals on economic grounds and of course the vast majority of most poor people do play by the rules, but you cannot address the issues of violence and criminality without also addressing the underlying socio-economic influences of such behavior. This is a symptom of a wider disease in our society. Blaming the HALA committee and PC attitudes is a little Mr. Wilson on his lawn at this point. HALA is a very flawed creation of a very flawed political process, but it is at least attempting to address the massive problem of rising rents and homelessness in the city. Giving tax breaks to developers is not something I am a huge fan of (and there are some glaring loopholes), but that is how you incentive the private industry. Let’s not forget this includes a tax on developers also. I suspect the real concern is neighborhood up-zoning, which threatens the ruling home-owner class’ real estate values (actually it doesn’t, but this is the perception).The idea that marginal property tax increases and housing levies will cause rent hikes is simply a fantasy. There is no data anywhere to back up this assertion. This is similar to the lie that lowering taxes on millionaires will lead to job creation or the canard that raising the minimum wage would lead to mass unemployment, neither of which ever panned out.

Sorry Duwamesque – you’ve got me pegged wrong. I’m neither retired nor particularly right-wing. Frankly, I didn’t even think about *BLM* when using the term “vocal minorities”, so you’re wrong there too. You brought that element into the discussion. I’m just tired of our elected (or appointed) officials pandering to folks at either end of the spectrum simply because they’re making the most noise, instead of doing what’s best for the city at large.BTW: I agree with much of what you say, although I disagree with some of it. It’s not a straight-line equation, but increasing property taxes and fees (such as the recently enacted RRIO) are part of operating expenses, and operating expense DO contribute to rent hikes. Unless, you expect the landlord to simply absorb them as an act of kindness?

Does anybody agree on what’s best for the city at large? I think we’d all vote for leadership that decisively acts to address problems now, but we’ve skipped over agreeing on what the problems and solutions are in the first place. (We all seem to agree that homelessness and transportation are problems, at least. And we all appear to be wincing at the tunnel saga.) I have a hard time finding meaningful discussions (online, anyway) that cut through predictable claims of NIMBYism, socialism, etc. and attempt to reconcile different interests and perspectives from people living and working here.

Might I be the first to say, I sure hope the family that was presented with a sawed off shotgun at 2:30 am last night are doing ok, not too shaken up and more importantly, they find this burglar. Seems really easy for people to redirect frustration, which is understandable but I hardly think the blog comments are the place to facilitate change within our government, at any level. Show up at a crime meeting, contact your local government or maybe get involved.

@Peter & Matt (although I accidently mastered paragraphs, I still have no idea how to respond within a thread),I will not deny there is an impact on the real estate market (and by extension to renters) from increasing property taxes and the like. I am not incredibly enthusiastic about raiding the property tax year after year, and I know those percentages of percentage points do add up over the years.However, the property tax is currently our only actual tax on wealth and is therefore a more progressive and sustainable source of revenue than, say, raising the sales tax again.Now if we were to move to a wealth based tax system, like a graded income tax or corporate earnings or inheritance (sorry, *death tax*–though you need to have the income bracket of King Tut to be affected), then that would be a different story and I would be all in favor of drastically cutting property taxes.I am skeptical that small increases in developer fees, linkage fees, etc. actually have any measurable impact on renters. Developers make so much profit from these projects and it’s such an insignificant amount of the overall cost. Developers made the same claim if linkage fees went up from $50 to $75 it would kill business. Does anyone really believe that with a straight face?I think what actually drives rent is much more to do with supply and demand and there simply isn’t enough supply in certain parts of the city especially for low and middle income folks. The best tool we have to increase supply is to supplement cheaper housing, which is the point behind HALA. They have to get money from somewhere and I have no problem charging developers. The property tax is arguably a necessary evil but it’s not like there aren’t other options.I am sorry if I misjudged you Peter and certainly I gave a bombastic response to what felt like a bombastic comment. I don’t know to which “vocal minorities” you are referring but it is a suggestive phrase to a use. The current and former (far more liberal) mayor were elected with strong pluralities of voters so I’m not sure who the minority is here. Seattle is a very liberal city. Certainly there are liberal kooks just like on the other side. I have yet to see how a conservative would improve things and given the state of the GOP at present forgive me if I am feeling the Bern!

@Dumanesque: “A good corollary to that would be to reiterate the need for reasonable gun control legislation that makes background checks universal, holds gun sellers accountable for backroom sales and rigorously enforces bans on illegal or illegally-modified (in the case of the sawed-off shotgun) weapons. Law enforcement has been asking for tougher gun laws for decades and it’s high time we listened.” Yes, that’s exactly what we need, more laws to enforce existing laws already being enforced…..We should also add backroom sales of hacksaws to that list. After all, the gun commits the crime, not the socially deprived lowlife criminal holding it.

So….. Not to get off subject or anything, as a neighbor and frequent shopper at the 7-11, I stopped in yesterday to give my support and see how folks were doing. The ‘regular’ faces were there behind the counter, quite surprised I had heard about the robbery. Of course I gave credit to the WSblog. I was assured they are doing fine and that it was “not so hard”. When I pressed on that it must have been scary to have a gun shoved in your face, I got a smile and a nod. Just thought people might like to know your neighbors are doing ok.

Enjoy playing cards? Make plans to be at Meeples Games (3727 California SW) on Thursday night to play a new card game with the local dad and daughter who created it. Their announcement: West Seattle father and daughter team, Chad and Lillian Gray, invite you to come and play their new card game, Goa...